


Cat-tastrophes Abound

by nathaylee



Series: Homestuck College AU [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, College AU, Collegestuck, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nathaylee/pseuds/nathaylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaspers, you little rascal! This segment of Collegestuck is brought to you by cats, and the messes they make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat-tastrophes Abound

"Neeeeeeeep!" The high shriek echoed down the hallway. A small furry form streaked away from a lilac-painted door and darted into the linen closet. 

"What's going on?!" someone, presumably Nepeta, shouted from the basement. 

"He did it again!"

"He spit again?"

"No! Did it!"

"Can't hear...coming up..." Footsteps clomped dully up the stairs. The cat pricked up its ears in the dark. "What was that?" Nepeta perched on the lowest step on the upper staircase. Her socked toes hung off the edge. 

"Jaspers did it again!"

 _Sigh_. "In your room?"

"Yeah! Come see!" Nepeta rolled her eyes and headed upstairs. Jaspers peeked around the closet door. She spotted him and held out her fingers, making vaguely cat-friendly noises. He left the towels behind and twined around her ankles. "Hey little cat...what did you do to Fef?" she crooned, scratching around his ears. 

"Come here! Now!...please?"

"I'm coming, geesh!" With a final pet, she straightened and walked to the end of the hallway, pushing the door wider. "Oh..."

Feferi's arms spaghetti'd as she gestured wildly at the papery chaos around her. "He did the thing...my notes are everywhere!!" Shredded lined paper was heaped around a worn bookbag; small bits led in a ragged trail to the door, indicating a panicked escape. "I walked in just now and he was asleep on top of that...nest thing. What is he, a bird?!"

Nepeta muffled a snort. "Yeah, definitely. Birdcat extraordinaire. Sorry about...all this...want some help cleaning it up or something?"

Fef's frown lightened. "Oh my g, that would help so much! Thanks Nep!" She pushed her fuchsia glasses further up her nose and knelt to collect the shreds of her education. "I hope I can get a copy of these notes from somebody..." she muttered. 

"I wonder why he feels the need to do that...I've never had a cat who chose [i]one person's[/i] stuff to destroy like this...is he trying to wreck anything else of yours?"

Feferi shook her head. "Nope! Just that one chair in the living room, like usual."

"Huh. Maybe he has a grudge against..." Nepeta scanned a larger fragment, "Philosophy? Why are you taking philosophy?"

She rolled her eyes, pulling a plastic bag out of nowhere and stuffing the smaller bits in. "Mom wants me to 'broaden my horizons' or something. Apparently being a doctor isn't enough for her, she wants me to be cultured or whatever, because it's very important that I be able to discuss, like, Faust and Freud and Hegel and mortality when I'm performing open heart surgery!" 

Nepeta giggled as she slid more bits and pieces in Fef's direction. "Does she let you choose _any_ of your courses?"

"Well, a couple...I guess I make her sound like a dragon mom, and maybe she is, but, like, she's just trying to push me to succeed. Like, she's done very well for herself--she wants me to be just as great or whatever?"

Nep nodded. "Yeah, I can kind of relate. You know how my mom illustrates things?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, well, she's really good at what she does. But she doesn't really push me to be arty or anything? I kind of...do it to myself...sort of. I dunno, I really want to be as cool as she is..."

"Do you really _want_ to be an illustrator?"

"Not really...more a normal artist? Whatever normal art is, I mean really..."

"Ha, have you seen that painting in the library?"

"No...do you mean that terrible 'multicultural' mural by the front doors?"

"No--it's by the comic section...the football player and the horse?"

Nepeta gave her a weird look as she stood up. "I don't...?"

"It's like the best thing ever, seriously! Go find it sometime!"

A quiet meow resounded from just beyond the doorway, and Feferi's eyes narrowed. 

"Aw, don't be mad at him, he's not _trying_ to be awful..."

"That cat..."

Nepeta's voice went high and scarily sweet as she bent down and scooped Jaspers up. "The little kitty didn't mean to be so," she looked up through her lashes at Fef, "pawful!"

Fef smirked despite herself. "You're a terrible boy, Jaspers! Such a bad, bad, boy..." She stroked his back grudgingly.

"Such a purretty boy!" 

"Neeeeeeep!" Feferi giggled. 

"I can do this all day, don't test me!"

"I don't doubt it," she laughed.

Aradia swung around the corner. "Anything wrong? I thought I heard yelling."

"Nothing too drastic...just another Jaspers mess for Fef." Nepeta frowned as she straightened, brushing a few paper shreds into the plastic garbage can. "I don't understand why he does that...and just to her stuff!"

Aradia raised her eyebrows. "I'm sure there's some reason for it. Anyway, I was just going to make some tea."

"Chocolate chai, please!" Fef's voice echoed oddly from under the bed. Her frilly skirt was picking up dust as she lay flat on the floor, trying to excavate some rogue scraps from under her bed. 

"Do we have any orange mint left?" Nep asked.

Aradia shrugged. "No idea. Come down and see?"

"Sure!" Nepeta followed her down the hall and staircase. As soon as they reached the kitchen, Nep asked, "Do you think he has a reason?"

"Jaspers? Yeah, sure. Haven't you noticed how annoyed Fef was with him? Right from when Rose dropped him off."

"Yeah, I guess... I just figured they'd warm up to each other eventually, right?"

Aradia rolled her eyes as she opened the tea cupboard. "You can only reasonably expect so much to change, though."

"I guess." Nepeta made a face. "Who doesn't like cats, though??"

Aradia laughed. "Silly Fef. I picked up some rose hip tea, want to try?" She grabbed a small box off the top of an unstable stack and shut the cupboard door.

"Ooh, yeah, sure." She lowered Jaspers toward the floor, and he twisted out of her arms, landing with a thump. She grabbed the tea kettle and filled it from the tap. "Always doing things backwards," she teased, as she set the kettle back on the base and flicked the switch. "Can't have tea without water."

"Yeah, whatever, the tea's also a pretty important part of the equation..." Aradia trailed off as she regarded the forest of mugs in the cupboard. "Which mug today? I'm using Henry." She grabbed a large skull-shaped monstrosity with a thick handle.

Nepeta peered around Aradia, then reached up an arm to shift a few oversized mugs. "Mmm... Clarence," she said, carefully extracting a mug by its cat-tail handle. She dropped a tea bag into her mug. "I feel like we never got around to naming all our mugs."

"That's probably because it's true," Aradia laughed. "I'm sure Johns and Janes Doe will get over it eventually..."

Nepeta stroked her hand across the sea of mugs. "The poor Doe family isn't very good at naming their kids," she said, before closing the cupboard.

"Don't tell Egbert's dad that." Aradia let a teabag dangle into her cup. "Shit, Fef wanted choco chai--" She headed back to the tea cupboard and started rummaging.

A knock sounded through the house. "Who could that be?" Nep asked. "Anyone expecting a package?"

"I am, but the mailman already came by..." mused Aradia. She successfully removed a chocolate chai teabag and dumped it into a squat violet mug. 

The knock repeated. "Well, whoever it is, someone needs to answer the door."

Nepeta padded out of the kitchen and through the living room to the door. The silhouette behind the frosted glass made her groan. "Ampora alert," she hissed, before putting on a smile and opening the door. Eridan was glaring, as usual. "Hey there! How's it going?" she chirped. 

"Everythin's fine," he ground out. She could hear Aradia stifling a groan from the kitchen. "Is Fef here?" _Wow, are there actual bags under his eyes?_

She turned and shouted over her shoulder. "Fef! Visitor!" She caught a grimace on his face as she whipped her head back around. _Ha, that's got his goat._ Nepeta stood aside from the door and let him stalk in, long coat billowing behind him like a cape. She heard a muffled shout from upstairs, and a patter of footsteps.

"Oh! Eridan! Is something wrong?" He said nothing, but marched up the stairs even faster, and Fef's brows furrowed. "Um, okay then, we can--" Fef's bubbly voice quieted into a soft whisper as she put an arm around him and they hurried to her room. Eridan's voice started speaking and rose a little, too muffled to hear. A door slammed.

Aradia poked her head around the corner. "Any casualties?"

"The carpet...a little..." Nep frowned and nudged the faint footprints he'd left behind with her socked foot. "Oh well, it'll probably come up when we vacuum." Jaspers emerged from the coat closet. "Hey buddy, let's get you some tuna." She gathered him into her arms like a baby and carried him off to the kitchen in triumph.


End file.
